Martin Scorsese is a master at taking the raunchy and making it artful, like crafting a sculpture out of a bin of rotten garbage. The assembly pieces of rotten banana peels and plastic soda can rings in this instance is by coincidence a group of Wall Street stock brokers.   I say by coincidence, because it is not as if the intention of this film was to criticize that....

  It hurts to be alone. It hurts to be rejected. It hurts not to be validated in the world. It is almost a painful realization of the vain aspects of one’s existence. Perhaps this is why the sting is so deep, and why countless artists try their hand at healing salves through film and song. On the other hand, to be loved is to be admired, to be cherished, to be valued. The worthiness....

  Election follows the path of despair for one unfortunate soul who is oblivious to his own unhappiness and dissatisfaction with his life. He masks his own self-loathing in an attack on a teenage girl who overachieves at everything she does. What’s terrific about the film is that it could have been presented with much darker overtones, akin to American Beauty. But it decided to stay....